Pay TV / Cable TV - Premium Channels in Finland
- Receiving Pay TV Channels: Access and Smart Cards
- Terrestrial and Cable signals
- Pay TV Operators
- Related Links
Pay TV channels, often generically referred to as 'Cable TV', are premium channels already being delivered in the signal to your house or apartment, but scrambled. This page tells you how to unlock those channels.
Receiving Pay TV Channels
Access
There are two steps to accessing Pay TV channels:
1)
Subscription: You need to purchase a subscription from a Pay TV company for the channel package(s) you want. See below for 'cable building' restrictions.
2) Smart Card: You will then be provided with a smart card (also called TV card, smartcard, viewing card), which is inserted into the card reader on your TV, set top box, or PVR / DVR.
Important: Smart cards cannot be directly inserted into all TVs! You may need to purchase a separate card reader (kortinlukija) module which plugs into the CI slot of your TV. You then insert the smart card into the module. Most external devices such as set top boxes have a built-in card reader.
Most packages include free software allowing you to also watch your premium channels on mobile devices.
Terrestrial and Cable signals
If you own a house the choice of system is yours. Apartment buildings, however, maintain a basic subscription with a Pay TV company on behalf of all tenants/shareholders. The signal, fed to all apartments, typically includes the free-to-air channels plus a couple of extras. Buildings use one of two systems; cable or terrestrial. The documentation for your apartment will tell you what system and TV company your building uses. The fee for 'basic cable' is already included in your rent or maintenance fee.
DVB-C: 'Cable Buildings' use the DVB-C digital broadcasting standard, and receive TV signals via a physical cable.
For premium channels, you'll need to use the same Pay TV 'cable company' with whom the building already has an agreement.
DVB-T: 'Terrestrial Buildings' use the DVB-T digital broadcasting standard, and receive TV signals via antenna. You can therefore choose which operator you use for your premium channels.
DVB-T transmissions were replaced by DVB-T2 in 2020, so make sure your receiver's T2-compliant.
Pay TV Operators
There are some 200 premium TV channels available, depending on your operator and package.
Cable Operators
Elisa Kanavakortti
Kanavakortti means Channel Card. With the Elisa Kanavakortti you get several free additional TV channels, and can subscribe to your favourites from almost 200 pay-TV channels on the Elisa cable TV network. Elisa also offers thousands of movies for rental.
Using Elisa's entertainment service and app, Viihde, you can also watch on your phone and tablet.
Site in Finnish but works great translated in Chrome browser (How?).
Translate in Chrome
Desktop: Right-click anywhere on a page and click Translate to [Language].
iPhone / iPad: At bottom of screen, tap Translate.
Android: At bottom of screen select Language, tap Translate.
Alternatively use Google Translate.
There are numerous regional cable companies. If you are free to choose, search "kaapeli-tv" and your location at Google. Here a couple of the bigger names.
- Maxivision maxivision.fi
- Telia telia.fi
- DNA TV dna.fi
Terrestrial Operators
- Allente allente.fi
- DNA TV dna.fi
Related Links
Links to other sites are direct to the relevant page, where possible
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